Updated almost 6 years ago on . Most recent reply
Women are more risk-averse as investors
Women are more risk-averse as investors, and while this is often blamed on a lack of financial literacy, the issue is more one of confidence, not competence: 45% of women with $1 million in investible assets were deemed financially literate in a study by the Center for Talent Innovation, versus just 39% of men. Yet only 30% of women said they were confident in their knowledge, versus 34% of men. “Men will invest through a lack of knowledge,” Krawcheck says, “but women—not so much.”
Men invest through a lack of knowledge and women do not... much to their own personal detriment. I've seen this to be true. If you're a female investor that wants to invest but has not yet, does this ring true for you?
Most Popular Reply
I'll elaborate now that I'm at my computer and not my phone. I can assure you that I'm not lazy, I love transparency, and after 35 years in market research and advertising, and 20 years of real estate investing, I can assure you that you can make data say whatever you want it to. How often does Barrons write about alternative investing outside of the stock market? Who are the advertisers that pay the bills? The article ONLY talks about Wall Street, and specifically mentions the fact that women question financial advisors more and are more likely to take their money elsewhere. It also says that women are more likely to engage in tax planning, long-term care, etc. That's actually SMART. The article doesn't talk about wealth...it talks about investing in the stock market with financial advisors, most of whom have no idea what the market is going to do beyond "over time the returns have been 10%...just hang in there." The article looks at one metric..."how much do they invest in wall street products?" Wall Street gets richer, we pay huge fees, stock investors pay more tax in general, and to make a blanket statement about how ignorant women are about financial matters is an ignorant statement in and of itself.
When you talk about investing, you have include all assets...not just stocks. My parents drank the cool-aide, and I watched them have to withdraw their retirement funds when the market was down. I watched what wealth they had disappear, and you can bet the farm that my portfolio would look to Barrons like I'm "risk averse."
"Fake News" was probably not how I should have articulated things. I should have said, and will now, that it's a one-sided article written by a very smart woman that has spent her career writing about wall street, published in a magazine that is owned by Dow Jones and is a sister publication to the Wall Street Journal. It's a blanket statement that women are more risk-averse than men, less financially savvy, and lack confidence. As women, we should question that.
I believe that the US population as a whole is not as financially literate as we should be. It has less to do with sex, and more to do with our educational system and the media we consume.
Hope that helps clarify, and thanks for getting this thread started. It's a very good topic to explore.